The Muses

In 2006 i started a series called the Muse project. Originally the plan was to work with one model over a year, shooting her once a month. This lasted for only 6 months though as i found it more difficult to come up with ideas as i was getting more in demand. I carried on working with Muses though as i found i also did my best work with them. They arent Muses in the true sense though , apart from one. That being Chrissie. I was in a relationship with her before i started workng with her. 

There has been 5 Muses so far plus some other girls that ive done a few shoots with.

SouDesade was the model i started the project with.

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I then worked with Kirsty and Britney

Last year I spent the year working with Chrissie

This year ive been workng with Mandy

The other girls have been Sooz, Chelsea Darling, and Marzy

At the moment im on the hunt for a new Muse. Someone that inspires me. Im still working with Mandy but usually i work with a few at a time. Each one offering something different. To see the amount of work i do with them check out www.artpunk.org

Its a great opportunity for someone as they get great pictures for their portfolio and promotion.

Anita DeBauch

On Sunday there i had the pleasure of working with the lovely Anita DeBauch at the Buff Club. The clothes were supplied by Drac in a box

A quiet week before the storm

Been a slow week this week with only one shoot for Kaeleigh Wallace. She was needing an Indian Wedding shot for the wedding show on Sunday. So it was wee trip up to Crossmyloof on Monday to shoot this. The shoot only took 30mins. It was good to get out the house and return a favour.

I also had an email from Joshua Karp saying i had a picture accepted for a new magazine he is producing called The Printed Blog . Its a magazine that prints the best blogs and content from the web and comes out in the States. www.theprintedblog.com

Ive a shoot with the lovely Anita DeBauch for Drac in the Box, tomorrow at the Buff Club. That should be good fun. Ive also hopefully a shoot with Kellie La Plegua for Amf Korsets next week before im off to cat sit at Castle Fozzies for a few days. While there im hoping to do a few shoots and find my new muse.

One of them is hopefully with the beautiful Michelle MacDonald.Ive really got to start working with agency standard models if thats really the direction i want to take my work.

Nicola

A couple of years ago the Buff Club asked me to shoot their calendar for them. This is when i first met Nicola. I got some beautiful photographs of her that day so asked her last year if she fancied another shoot. She declined but last week she commented on me looking for a new muse and i asked her again. So on Wednesday we had a shoot at the Buff Club. 

Another person i met on the calendar shoot was Terri who had asked me about doing styling. Theres a real shortage of stylists up here. So i thought id give her an opportunity to see what she can do. I think if she can make the right contacts , she could do well. Terri did the styling for the shoot and think she did great with the limited resources.










It was  fun working with Nicola, she is a beautiful girl and it was really easy to get a great picture. Ill hopefully work with her again in the future.

Model: Nicola

Stylist: Terri Higgens

Location: The Buff Club

Ive a shoot with Anita DeBauch a week on Sunday which im really looking forward to.

Anatomic Bomb

Through shooting with Club Noir i got to know Madeline who owns Anatomic Bomb. She is a great designer of good quality latex clothes at very reasonable prices. Anyway one day  i asked if she would be interested in me shooting some of her outfits. 

Heres some of the results.

Anyway big thank you to Madeline for supplying the outfits and check out Anatomic Bomb

Lighting courses and style

 Was think of running lighting courses but then thought

 "Artpunk lighting course : Stick the light there, switch it on, take picture. Does it look good? Nope. Move it"

Im not against lighting courses but why would i want to shoot in someone elses style. To me a photographers style is down to how something is lit and post processed. The post processing less so, if a retoucher is used.

I think photographers should experiment with lighting till they find a way of working that makes them happy. You can see instantly if something isnt working and can change it. 

What bothers me though is magazines taking the safe option and pictures in magazines being very samey. I can understand why they do it, to please advertisers but they arent encouraging photographers to develop a style of their own. Its becoming very boring.

I thought id show you a development of my work. Starting from shooting with a Pentax MZ 5n in 2005. This is just my model photography though as i did start when i was 18 shooting live bands and landscapes. This was mostly for fun though and at the time i didnt class myself as a photographer.

In The winter of 2006 i switched to digital and shot with a Nikon D80 and a beauty dish with a 500w bulb. My work took a leap forward in quality. This was when i started my muse projects which has carried on till this day. It gave me the opportunity to experiment more with lighting.

It wasnt till last year i started working with studio lighting while i was working with Chrissie at Fozzie's studio at Polmont. Days were spent there just experimenting with lighting.

6 months ago i bought some illumen 8's and ive been working on my style using those lights. Its taken a wee while but its starting to head in the right direction.

 Theres to many folk wanting to take a shortcut instead of putting the work in